Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/317

 persuade Walsingham that it would be lawful to poison Mary Queen of Scots. Ob. 1588.

In the dressing-room,

Sir William Petre, secretary of state to Henry VIII. Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward VI. It is probable that he owed his good fortune, in retaining his post in reigns of such different tempers, to the politic maxim of a contemporary statesman, namely, "by being supple as the willow, not stubborn as the oak."—Sir Anthony Browne Viscount Montacute.

We had now reached the coal country, marks of which appeared at Lumley, where are pits and engines in the very neighbourhood of the castle. All beauty of scenery vanished from this point, and nothing occurred to make amends for the loss but two or three little villages, entirely inhabited by colliers, who are employed in the mines to supply the immense fleets of Sunderland with their freights of coal. That of Warden-Row presented a very agreeable picture, as we passed through it on the Sunday evening, peopled entirely by these sons of the earth and their families; we here saw a decency in persons and habitations, and a decorum and civility in manners and behaviour, that one seldom meets with in more refined societies of men; which told so much in their favour, when placed in comparison with most of the towns through